Endothelial nitric oxide gene polymorphisms, nitric oxide production and coronary artery disease risk in a South Indian population

Nitric oxide (NO) synthesized by vascular endothelial cells, is a vasodilator agent produced from endothelial NO synthase (eNOS). It has been reported that decreased bioavailability of NO plays an important role in the development and progression of atherosclerosis. Electrocardiographically proven 100 patients with acute myocardial infarction and 100 age and sex matched healthy individuals with normal coronary arteries were included for the study. The genotypes of a 27-bp insertion/deletion in intron 4 (eNOS 4b/4a) and G894T polymorphism in exon 7, were determined by PCR analysis based on the banding pattern on gel electrophoresis. The genotype frequencies were calculated following the Hardy-Weinberg law. Serum NO level was also estimated by the Griess method. NO levels in AMI patients were higher than those of the healthy subjects (median [interquartile range], (14.36[12.42-15.78]) μM compared with 11.28[10.32-11.89]) μM; p<0.001; Mann-Whitney rank sum test, U=285. Mutant "T" allele frequency of the eNOS-G894T polymorphism was found to be comparatively higher (0.29) in AMI patients than among the controls (0.17). The calculated Odds ratio showed that the occurrence of mutant allele "T" was 1.6 fold as frequent in cases than controls [OR=1.6 (95%CI 0.898 to 2.833)]. To conclude, in the present study, (i) NO levels were found to be increased in patients than in controls, (ii) the homozygous mutant (TT) genotype confers genetic susceptibility to coronary artery disease (iii) both the eNOS 4a/b and G894T polymorphisms were not associated with serum NO levels in a South Indian Tamil population.